The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [49]
In the half hour since they’d left the Adlon, Marten had said little, just turning this way and that at Anne’s direction. Clearly she knew the city, at least this part of it, and was seemingly intent on taking them to some destination in particular. Just where that was and who would be waiting when they arrived were questions that made him as uneasy as the two that remained from earlier: how she had known where he was staying in Berlin and where he’d gone when he went to meet with Theo Haas. And then there was the business with the shower before they’d left the Adlon and the phone call she’d made from behind its closed door. At this point they all troubled him. As if he didn’t have trouble enough.
“Where are we going?” he said abruptly.
“It’s not far.”
“Wherever it is, it’s taking too long. We’re giving the police too much time.”
“I said, it’s not far.”
“What’s not far? Bar, restaurant, another hotel, what?”
“A friend’s apartment.”
“What friend?”
“Just a friend.”
“The one you called when you went in to take a shower?”
“What do you mean?”
“The shower was an excuse. The real reason you went in there was to make a call without me hearing.”
“Darling,” she smiled, “I wanted to get cleaned up, nothing more.”
“Your BlackBerry was on the bed before you went in. It wasn’t there afterward.”
Anne’s smile faded. “Alright, I did make a call. It was to my friend. To help us.”
“Then why the secret?”
“It was personal. Do I have to explain everything?”
“Just get us there.”
“We—” She hesitated.
“We—what?”
“Have to wait.”
“For what?”
“She has to make arrangements.”
“Arrangements?”
“Yes. She’ll call me when it’s ready.”
“Who the hell is ‘she’?”
Anne’s eyes flashed with anger. “Understand something. The police are everywhere. There is no other place for us to go.”
Marten didn’t like it. Any of it. He pressed her hard. “Verbrechen des Jahrhunderts.”
“What?”
“Verbrechen des Jahrhunderts. Crime of the century. That’s what you translated from the television. You understand German. You know your way around the city. You had me followed from the airport. That’s how you knew where I was staying. You had somebody watching the hotel, telling you the moment I left it and which way I had gone. It’s how you found me in the park. Then with the police swarming all over you suddenly have to take a shower. And now we’re going to a ‘friend’s’. A woman who has to make ‘arrangements’ first. What kind of friend is she, darling, when everyone in the city is looking for me, and probably by now for you as well? You told me to stop playing games; now it’s your turn. You’re not just Striker Oil. You’re something else. Who? What?”
Ahead was Weidendamm Bridge where Friedrichstrasse crossed the river. Stairs led up to it.
“Take the stairs,” she said quietly.
“I asked you a question.”
Just then two Berlin policemen went by on motorcycles, slowing as they did. A half block later, they stopped and looked back, one of them speaking into a microphone mounted to his helmet. Abruptly Anne took Marten by the hand and pulled him around.
“Kiss me.” She looked into his eyes. “And act like you mean it. Do it now.”
Marten glanced at the police and then did. She kissed him back, long and hard.
The motorcycle cops watched, then rode off.
“The stairs,” she said again and steered him toward them
7:40 P.M.
29
7:42 P.M.
Two more motorcycle officers were waiting when they reached the top of the stairs at Weidendamm Bridge. Their machines were parked to one side, and they stood on the sidewalk chatting. Left was the way Anne wanted to go, but to do it they would either have to walk directly past the police or cross the street to the other side, which might well be interpreted as a deliberate move to avoid them. Instead Anne turned them right across the